Strict Diabetic Diet Can Lead to Nutrient Deficiencies – Here's How to Strengthen Pancreatic Function

Many diabetic patients believe that as long as the indicators are basically within the normal range, everything will be fine.

Actually, this idea is very scary. Diabetes itself is a metabolic disease. If you only focus on lowering blood sugar and excessively strict dietary control, you will develop vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

Moreover, many anti-diabetic drugs are prone to cause vitamin deficiencies during treatment, such as metformin, which has a clear side effect of long-term use causing vitamin B12 deficiency.

Once these are deficient, it's bad for human health and can worsen diabetes and its complications!

Diabetes is most afraid of various complications. Compared to other normal people, diabetic patients require higher levels of vitamins and minerals.

So, what vitamins and minerals should diabetic patients pay attention to? What foods contain these elements? How should diabetic patients balance their diet?

This time, the headline special column of BTV Health and Wellness is invited by the Chief Physician of Nutrition Department of the 309 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army, Left Small Xua, to chat with you about diabetic dietary issues.

Chromium is an important glucose regulator, which can improve insulin resistance

Chromium is a trace element, a component of glucose tolerance factor, which can enhance the effect of insulin.

Diabetic patients supplementing with chromium can improve glucose intolerance impairment. Studies have shown that daily intake of 200-1000 micrograms of trivalent chromium has a significant improvement in blood sugar for diabetic patients, with no effect on non-diabetic patients.

Chromium can also increase the sensitivity of animal tissue to insulin, improve the efficiency of glucose entering cells, and is an important glucose regulator.

Zinc reduces insulin-producing cell function

Zinc is also a trace element, widely present in the human body and with a high concentration inside cells, which makes it have three basic functions: catalytic function, structural function, and regulatory function. Through these three functions, zinc plays an important role in human development, cognitive behavior, wound healing, taste, maintaining secondary sexual characteristics, and immune regulation.

Zinc is an important component of insulin, and zinc deficiency reduces the ability of insulin-producing cells to produce insulin.

Maintain stable blood sugar levels—Vitamin A

Vitamin A, also known as retinol, is a nutrient essential for maintaining immune function. The retinol and vitamin A precursors in dietary foods can provide vitamin A nutrition, and dietary carotenoids also have health effects beyond vitamin A nutrition.

Studies have found that vitamin A may play a crucial role in the performance of β-cell insulin secretion function, and vitamin A deficiency can reduce the β-cell's ability to resist inflammation, which may lead to the occurrence of type 1 diabetes and apoptosis of insulin-producing cells.

It is recommended that diabetic patients with diabetic eye disease should supplement appropriately.

In addition, calcium and vitamin D can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes; supplementing with B vitamins can help improve the symptoms of diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Lack of magnesium can cause poor insulin response in the body, leading to increased blood sugar.

These foods contain the elements needed by the human body, but their content is greatly affected by processing methods.

1, Dietary chromium

Main sources are grains, meat and seafood, nuts such as walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts and beans, and vegetables and fruits have low chromium content.

2, Dietary zinc

Generally, animal sources such as shellfish, red meat, and animal internal organs are good sources of zinc; plants contain low zinc.

3, Vitamin A

Vitamin A sources in the diet include preformed vitamin A (retinol) in various animal foods and various red, yellow and green vegetables and fruits containing vitamin A precursor—carotenoids, and our bodies cannot synthesize vitamin A, we need to get it from our diet.

However, food processing methods greatly affect the content of vitamins and minerals.

In diabetic diet, you need to achieve these three balances

Earlier we said that vitamins and minerals help improve diabetic patients' glucose metabolism and prevent diabetic complications.

Of course, balanced diet is also important for diabetic patients. Balanced diet means maintaining a reasonable proportion of various nutrients in the diet. In short, it is to achieve these three balances:

① Calorie intake should be balanced with calorie consumption to maintain standard body weight, excessive obesity or thinness will affect health.

② The percentages of protein, fat and carbohydrates in the total diet are balanced.

③ The nutrients between them are balanced.

Besides, at the same time as paying attention to reasonable dietary management, you should also have a healthy lifestyle:

① Maintain a balanced, positive, and happy mood, heart and mind.

② Eat a balanced and appropriate diet, maintain a reasonable weight and figure.

③ Combine work and rest, persist in sports and exercise.

④ Develop good habits of supplementing nutrients, quit smoking, staying up late and drinking a lot.

In the diabetic diet, you must have many difficulties or doubts.